Over two days in November, record-breaking heat in Australia's north wiped out almost one-third of the nation's spectacled flying foxes, according to researchers.
The animals, also known as spectacled fruit bats, were unable to survive in temperatures which exceeded 42C.
Lead researcher Dr Justin Welbergen, an ecologist, believes the "biblical scale" of deaths could be even higher - as many as 30,000 - because some settlements had not been counted.
Australia had only an estimated 75,000 spectacled flying foxes before November, according to government-backed statistics.
"This sort of event has not happened in Australia this far north since European settlement," says Dr Welbergen.
Dr Welbergen says about 10,000 bats of another species - black flying foxes - succumbed to the heat during the same two-day period.
A section of highway connecting Sydney and Melbourne started to melt. Bats fell dead from the trees, struck down by the heat.
On the northern Great Barrier Reef, 99% of baby green sea turtles, a species whose sex is determined by temperature, were found to be female.
In outer suburban Sydney, the heat hit 47.3C (117F) before a cool change knocked it down - to the relative cool of just 43.6C in a neighbouring suburb the following day.
Scenes from a sci-fi novel depicting a scorched future? No, just the first days of 2018 in Australia, where summer is in fierce form
It was 48.9C last Tuesday in Port Augusta, South Australia, an old harbour city that now harvests makes solar power. Michelle Coles, the owner of the local cinema, took off her shoes at night to test the concrete before letting the dogs out. “People tend to stay at home,” she said. “They don’t walk around when it’s like this.”
It’s easy to see why: in the middle of the day it takes seconds to blister a dog’s paw or child’s foot. In Mildura, in northern Victoria, last week gardeners burned their hands when they picked up their tools, which had been left in the sun at 46C. Fish were dying in the rivers.
Almost every day last week a new heat record was broken in Australia. They spread out, unrelenting, across the country, with records broken for all kinds of reasons – as if the statistics were finding an infinite series of ways to say that it was hot.
The tiny town of Noona – population 14 – reached the highest minimum ever recorded overnight in Australia – 35.9C was the coldest it got, at 7am on Friday. It was 45C by noon.
A record fell on Tuesday in Meekatharra in Western Australia – the highest minimum there ever recorded (33C). Another fell on Wednesday, 2,000 miles away, in Albury, New South Wales – their hottest day (45.6C).
It was 45C or higher for four consecutive days in Broken Hill – another record – and more than 40C for the same time period in Canberra, the nation’s capital. Nine records fell across NSW on Wednesday alone. Back in Port Augusta, Tuesday was the highest temperature since records began in 1962. ...
At least 28 locations hit all-time highs on Thursday. In Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, the official West Terrace station rocketed to 46.6°C (115.9°F)—the highest temperature ever recorded at the designated reporting sites for any of Australia’s state or territorial capitals. About 200 miles away, the city of Port Augusta hit its all-time high on Thursday with a blistering 49.5°C (121.1°F). That’s unnervingly close to the nation’s all-time high of 50.7°C (123.3°F), notched at Oodnadatta, South Australia, on January 2, 1960.
The Port Augusta reading is exceptional in another way: it’s the highest temperature ever recorded at a coastal location in the Southern Hemisphere, according to independent weather researcher Maximiliano Herrera. This includes oceans, seas, gulfs, and lakes, Herrera said. Port August sits near the head of Spencer Gulf, north of Adelaide.
Just a day earlier, on Wednesday, the Red Rocks Point station—which faces Antarctica from the Nullarbor coast of Western Australia—hit 49.1°C (120.4°C). According to Blair Trewin (AU Bureau of Meteorology), the Red Rocks Point station is located only 70 meters (230 feet) from the water. “This is the highest temperature recorded anywhere in the world at such a close distance from an open ocean,” Herrera said. He noted that the sea surface temperature at the time was 22-23°C (72-73°F), quite chilly when compared to the sizzling atmosphere.
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This summer's brutal heat is having major impacts on thousands of feral horses, donkeys, and cattle, among other creatures....
Fire danger on Friday was running at severe to extreme levels across much of Victoria, prompting a fire weather warning for several districts and a statewide fire ban. The fire risk is also very high to extreme in Tasmania, where at least 29 fires were reportedly out of control late Thursday. Friday marks the start of the Australia Day holiday weekend, which commemorates the nation’s founding. ...
Calgary is experiencing its longest stretch of cold weather in 21 years.
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